Marrying Winterborne (The Ravenels #2) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,5

he had kissed her at Ravenel House, she would manage the situation far differently. It was only that she had been so profoundly intimidated by him. He had kissed her, put his hands on her, and she had reacted with startled dismay. After a few harsh words, he had left. That was the last time she had seen him until now.

Had there been a few flirtations in her girlhood—a stolen kiss or two from a young lad—perhaps the encounter with Mr. Winterborne wouldn’t have been so alarming. But she’d had no experience at all. And Mr. Winterborne was no innocent boy, but an adult man in his prime.

The strange part—the secret she couldn’t confess to anyone—was that in spite of her distress over what had happened, she had begun to dream every night about Mr. Winterborne pressing his mouth very hard against hers, over and over. In some of the dreams, he would begin to unfasten her dress, kissing her ever more compellingly and forcefully, all of it leading toward some mysterious conclusion. She would awaken breathless and agitated, and hot with shame.

A flicker of that same turmoil awakened low in her stomach as she looked up at him. “Show me how you want to be kissed,” she said, her voice shaking only a little. “Teach me how to please you.”

To her astonishment, one corner of his mouth curled with contemptuous amusement. “Hedging your bets, are you?”

She stared at him in confusion. “Hedging my . . .”

“You want to keep me on the hook,” he clarified, “until you’re sure about Trenear’s windfall.”

Helen was baffled and hurt by the scorn in his tone. “Why can’t you believe that I want to marry you for reasons other than money?”

“The only reason you accepted me was because you had no dowry.”

“That’s not true—”

He continued as if he hadn’t heard. “You need to marry one of your own kind, my lady. A man with pretty manners and a fine pedigree. He’ll know how to treat you. He’ll keep you in a country house, where you’ll tend your orchids and read your books—”

“That’s the opposite of what I need,” Helen burst out. It wasn’t at all like her to speak impetuously, but she was too desperate to care. Clearly he meant to send her away. How could she convince him that she genuinely wanted him?

“I’ve spent my entire life reading about the lives other people are having,” she continued. “My world has been . . . very small. No one believes I would thrive if I weren’t kept secluded and protected. Like a flower in a glasshouse. If I marry one of my kind, as you put it, no one will ever see me as I am. Only what I’m supposed to be.”

“Why do you think I would be any different?”

“Because you are.”

He gave her an arrested glance that reminded her of the gleam of light on a knife blade. After a peculiarly charged silence, he spoke brusquely. “You’ve known too few men. Go home, Helen. You’ll find someone during the Season, and then you’ll thank God, on your knees, that you didn’t marry me.”

Helen felt her eyes sting. How had everything been ruined so quickly? How could she have lost him so easily? Sickened with regret and grief, she said, “Kathleen shouldn’t have spoken to you on my behalf. She thought she was protecting me, but—”

“She was.”

“I didn’t want to be protected from you.” Fighting for composure was like trying to run through sand: She couldn’t find traction amid the shifting angles of emotion. To her mortification, tears welled and a vehement sob escaped her. “I went to bed with a migraine for one day,” she continued, “and when I woke up the next morning, our engagement was broken and I had l-lost you and I didn’t even—”

“Helen, don’t.”

“I thought it was only a misunderstanding. I thought if I spoke to you directly, everything would be s-sorted out, and—” Another sob choked her. She was so consumed by emotion that she was only vaguely aware of Rhys hovering around her, reaching for her and snatching his hands back.

“No. Don’t cry. For God’s sake, Helen—”

“I didn’t mean to push you away. I didn’t know what to do. How can I make you want me again?”

She expected a jeering reply, or perhaps even a pitying one. The last thing she expected was his shaken murmur.

“I do want you, cariad. I want you too damned much.”

She blinked at him through a bewildered blur, breathing in mortifying hiccups,